The present invention relates in a general manner to the field of inflatable-cushion packaging.
A packaging item, comprising a rigid box which is, for example, parallelepipedal, against the internal walls of which six inflatable cushions are respectively provided, is known, especially from Patents FR-A-2,063,701 or FR-A-2,625,172. Each cushion or group of cushions includes an inflating pipette which can possibly pass through a perforation formed in the equivalent face of the box so as to enable the said cushion or group of cushions to be inflated from the outside.
An object to be packaged is thus, after inflating, intimately wedged between the internal faces of the cushions which, by their deformability, adapt to the shape and/or size of the said object.
Thus, such a packaging item can be used for packaging articles of various dimensions and shapes by suitably wedging them each time.
However, such a known packaging item has several drawbacks.
On the one hand, the correct positioning of the cushions or groups of cushions, in the deflated or semi-inflated state, can turn out to be irksome.
On the other hand, in order for the cushions to be able to adapt easily to objects of different sizes, it is desirable to impart particular profiles to them, for example trapezoidal profiles, which complicates their manufacture.
Finally, it may be noted that such a known packaging item has to include a box which is special in the sense that it must be provided with at least one perforation enabling a pipette to pass, for inflating from outside.